Understanding Snmp Mibs

I've earned two CS degrees and worked with SNMP and TCP for years. The problem with the book is that it is written by pompus insiders. SNMP is one of the worst standards used on the internet. You could teach a course on how such a rudimentary functionality was obfuscated by impenetrable terminology and poor implementation choices (ASN1/BER for example).What is desperately needed in understanding SNMP is someone who knows what a disaster it is and tries to help bridge the terminology gaps. Unfortunately, the authors actually believe that the terminology and implementation were a good idea. They can't bring themselves to say "You know what the rest of the world calls an array? Well, we decided to call them 'columnar objects'"The most useful part of the book was learning of the available SNMP parsers, 'smicng' and 'mosey' in an appendix. But now that I've told you, there is no reason to buy this book.

As co-chair of the IETF's SNMPv3 working group (the group that defines SNMP), I am constantly asked questions about how to implement some detail of a MIB, or to act as the authority in settling a dispute over the way somebody has implemented a MIB, ot to guide the empoyees in my company about organizing our enterprise MIB. This book, more than any other book I own, provides me with solid reference material about MIBs and SMIv2, and it is the first book I use to find the answers I need.

Bought this book because I was tasked with getting SNMP support on a product. With that requirement came designing and writing a MIB. With this book, I wrote it with text book precision. Thanks.

This is a great book on a dry subject. This book has a very nice consolidation of SNMP information from the relevant sources as well as detailed instructions on how to create your own MIB. I highly recommend it if you are looking to learn more about MIB construction and authoring.

Good information

Let's not kid ourselves, SNMP MIBs are messy and needlessly confusing. Most of this confusion stems from the fact that there are many ways to do the same thing. This book helps you identify the various ways of doing something so that you can make informed decisions.I find this book to be a well organized reference about MIB design and SNMP at the protocol level. It assumes the reader already has some understanding of the topic.If you are new to MIB design, I suggest that you check the web first to get a basic understanding. Note that this book is not geared toward SNMP network administration.

A colleague of mine had this book in hardback. Without paying too much attention, I ordered the same from Amazon. Imagine my disappointment when mine arrived as a cheesy paperback. Not only that, the paper quality is poor and a lot of the type is smeared!! The quality is more like a $30 book. Since I'll be using this frequently as a reference, I imagine it will fall apart before long. If you can find a used one in hardback, GET IT!I haven't dug into it yet, but the content looks very useful. Too bad about the wrapper! I'm tired of getting ripped when buying technical books!!!!Epilogue:After complaining to Prentice Hall customer service about the smeared type, they sent me a replacement. I had to provide documentation. The replacement did not have the smeared type.Epilogue's Epilogue:As I predicted, after using the replacement for about 3 weeks the binding is already starting to fall apart. I didn't think it would happen this soon though! ARRRRGH! WHAT A WASTE OF TREES!!!

The book "Understanding SNMP MIBs" introduces the reader to the Management Information Base (the MIB) used to describe data managed through the SNMP protocol. The book covers the basic ideas behind SNMP and the operations supported by SNMP, but the major part of the text really focuses on the syntax and the structure of the information base and on defining and maintaining MIBs.The book does a wonderful job in covering all the related aspects around MIBs. It gives a very good introduction to SNMP (yes, it is brief, but it is much easier to read than some of the texts that focus on SNMP) it gives a detailed description of the MIB syntax and on how to define, build and maintain MIBs. The task of designing and implementing a MIB is illustrated from different points of views. In one chapter, the practical considerations in building MIBs are laid out, e.g. v1 vs. v2, module naming and module layout, in another chapter, the authors lead the readers through the definition process of the MIBs for a hypothetical company with a small product. I addition an analysis of some standard MIBs and the techniques applied in these is included. The whole book is written very well and is in fact very understandable and clear. A lot of critical points in SNMP and the structure of MIBs are explained and commented (although some of the comments are not really constructive).There are only a few minor points that I did not like about this text. a) Some of the illustrations are just plain horrible, b) the chapter ordering is a little weird: SNMP intro, MIB syntax, SNMP operations, MIB design, MIB browser, MIB design example (but maybe that's just me?) and c) where is the 2nd edition including v3?Overall, this is a very helpful book. The material is very well presented and really helps to understand SNMP MIBs.

If you have to understand Simple Network Management Protocol (SNMP) MIBs (Management Information Blocks), this book is helpful. I had to learn how to create and integrate MIBs into an existing product suite that already used the technology, but I needed to modify existing blocks and add new ones.